Al-Jazeera fires its Moscow bureau chief

Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera has fired its bureau chief in Moscow after Russian Mulslim leaders reportedly complained that he had insulted the Islamic religion.

Akram Khuzam had headed Al-Jazeera's office in the Russian capital for nearly a decade. According to the Russian newsagency Interfax, citing a member of of the Russian Islamic Committee, Geidar Jemalin, Khuzam's dismissal follows a series of complaints against him.

Last year Russian news reports named Khuzam as one of the possible mediators identified by a group of Chechen separatists in their stand-off with Russian authorities over a school in the southern city of Beslan.

The siege ended in carnage with 300 people including 186 children killed by the separatists after Russian troops stormed the school, the AKI reports.